A Doctor, A Fling & A Wedding Ring

‘The sea is glorious. To think I’ve watched it for days and I’ve only just touched it.’

Nick drifted closer until he could brush her hand. ‘Mmm. I feel the same.’

She opened her eyes lazily and paddled with her hands until she bumped into his chest. ‘Oops. Sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ His hands captured her shoulders and pulled her slowly into his chest, so that she was anchored on his lap in the water. ‘I’m a sea god. You have to pay a tax when you bump into me.’

She closed one eye. ‘Well, I’m a mermaid. Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?’

Oh, yes. She was dangerous, all right—much more than a woman who knew the rules—but still he turned her to face him.

‘I laugh at danger,’ he said, and she giggled again.

So he kissed her, which was what he’d wanted to do since she’d met him on the gangplank this morning, and time stood still and her skin felt like silk under the water as she twined her arms around his neck.

When she returned his kiss with such an innocent ardour it tore at his heart and tightened his chest. He couldn’t remember when it had been like this.

Holding Tara was precious, yet terrifying, and some of that fear was a residual warning against becoming too fond of someone.

Dear Reader

Have you ever been on a sea voyage? Or imagined being on one? Had moments when you lean on the rail and gaze out over an ocean that stretches away to the horizon?

I’ve always wanted to write a cruise ship love story, and have been fascinated by the staff who work in those mini-hospitals below decks. There was even a handsome single doc on my cruise, who showed us around, and I’ve been itching to write his story.

So meet my two shipboard doctors: Nick and Tara.

Tara has been working as an aid doctor under primitive conditions in the Sudan and is being forced to have a break. She just doesn’t expect to end up as a doctor on a cruise liner.

Nick Fender loves to party. He was the only man in the house with four fabulous sisters, and he has no wish to settle down. Nick’s on holiday at the moment, but working as a cocktail waiter on the Sea Goddessa, filling in for his youngest sis Kiki, who has pneumonia. It’s a job he once did himself when he took a break from medicine. (Watch out for Kiki’s story coming soon!)

Our voyage sails Nick and Tara around the magnificent Mediterranean, and they discover each other’s strengths as they pass the Greek Isles, the coast of Italy, Croatia and finally Venice. Venice… Ahh… I hope you have fun as we sail away on the fantasy of the Sea Goddessa and the emotional journey of Nick and Tara.

With warmest wishes

Fiona

Mother to five sons, Fiona McArthur is an Australian midwife who loves to write. Medical Romance™ gives Fiona the scope to write about all the wonderful aspects of adventure, romance, medicine and midwifery that she feels so passionate about—as well as an excuse to travel! Now that her boys are older, Fiona and her husband, Ian, are off to meet new people, see new places, and have wonderful adventures. Fiona’s website is at www.fionamcarthur.com.

A Doctor,

A Fling &

A Wedding Ring

Fiona McArthur

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Rosie, my shipmate,

who made it possible.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER ONE

TARA MCWILLIAMS walked away from the tent but the whispering sobs of grief from the widower followed her like the relentless harshness of Africa followed her clients. The sound of heartbreak. Losing a young wife and child because by the time they’d walked here it had been too late for Tara to be able to help.

A tiny insect flew into her eye and as she brushed it away she wished she could summon up some tears. Doug’s hand rested gently on her shoulder and she reached up to cover the wrinkled skin, offering comfort. Just to feel life beneath her fingers.

Douglas Curlew squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’re done, Tara. No more.’

Tara pushed the limp hair off her forehead and sighed as Doug’s fingers fell away. ‘I’m fine.’

Doug glanced back over his shoulder towards the tent. ‘You’re not fine, you’re mentally exhausted, physically frail and need to get away from here for at least six months, if not permanently. Two years battling to save lives here is enough. Vander wouldn’t have expected it.’

‘We both know he would have.’ She glanced around at the grimy greyness of the tent city. The harsh sun beat down on them from overhead and she shielded her eyes. ‘And I’m not the one who’s left crying.’

‘Maybe you should be. When was the last time you let yourself go?’

A trickle of sweat rolled between her breasts and skittered down to her belly. Not much cleavage there to stop it any more. She lifted her head wearily. ‘I haven’t cried since he died. No time for useless emotion here, is there?’ Tara thought about that and sighed again.

For the first time she glimpsed the truth in Doug’s words. Her body ached with the lethargy of deep exhaustion. She had no doubt she could sleep where she fell.

She almost couldn’t remember why she stayed here. ‘You know as well as I do, Doug, we’re critically understaffed. Who would do my job if I didn’t? That’s why Vander wanted me to stay.’

Doug shrugged philosophically. ‘Vander died eighteen months ago.’ He was more grounded to reality than Tara. ‘Who did the job before you both came?’ He shrugged. ‘The same person who’ll do your job if you burn out completely. The fact is, you’re different from the vibrant young woman you used to be.’

Her chief patted her shoulder and gestured to the sea of tents in the refugee evacuation camp. ‘You’ve done an incredible job for too long. This place has grown from five thousand to eighty thousand. The emergency birth procedures you’ve taught are saving countless lives that would have been lost. The staff you trained will carry on, but they love you and they’re worried, and they’re entitled to care enough to ask you to rest.’

It was almost too much effort to lift her shoulders in a shrug. ‘Okay. I’ll rest.’

Doug’s dog-with-a-bone worrying became even more tenacious. ‘Have a decent holiday at least. A total change of scene.’

‘And do what?’ Tara threw out her hands. ‘I’ve seen so many tragedies here I don’t think I could stop and just sit. Images of all those brave women who’ve died would revolve in my head like a horror film.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean.’ He lowered his thick white Scottish brows and his brogue softened and shifted like the sand beneath their feet. ‘Time to go, Tara. Find a little light relief. I’ve seen staff crash and burn and you’re close. I don’t want that for you.’

And do what? she thought again. Her parents were gone. No significant other. That was a laugh. ‘I can’t just sit. Do nothing. My house is rented, I don’t have a job, there’s nothing in Australia for me.’ Sure, she was different from the wanting-to-do-good and eager-to-learn young woman of two years ago. You couldn’t stay enthusiastic and fresh when you saw birthing women stoically accept they would die because they lived in the wrong part of the world.

‘You don’t have to go all the way home.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Been thinking about that. I’ve a friend who captains a cruise liner due to sail in three days from Rome. Twelve days at a time and their junior doctor broke his leg. He’s willing to rush the paperwork.’

For the first time in a long time Tara felt like laughing but the tinge of hysteria she could feel in her throat gave her pause. Shakily she gathered her control, like grasping at the string of a kite that almost got away. ‘You’re not talking change, Doug, you’re talking a different planet.’

Tara grimaced and tried to imagine herself caring for pampered cruise-line passengers after the horrors she’d seen here in the Sudan. ‘You know how many women out of every thousand women die having babies here, Doug. How could I move to a luxury liner?’

‘It’s the quickest option I can think of. The cruise is less than two weeks long. Then they’ll drop you off in Venice, where they can replace the crew doctor and you can fly home or wherever you want. Or you could stay on and have a working holiday.’

Venice? She’d always wanted to see Venice.

She shook her head. Incomprehensible.

‘And you wouldn’t be treating the passengers as your main priority—the unfortunate guy was the junior and you’d be caring for the crew. The senior would do most of the passenger liaison.’

Still. A luxury liner? After this? ‘I don’t think so.’

Doug stared her down. Not something he would’ve been able to do a year ago. ‘It’s not a suggestion, Tara.’

‘Are you ordering me to leave?’ She raised her brows but her voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked.

‘Yes. And if I could, I’d order you to indulge in a random dalliance with a cocktail waiter or gym instructor and really let your hair down.’ Doug had one hand on his hips and the other in the air, admonishing.

Now she did laugh and it sounded almost natural. ‘And I always thought of you as a father figure. I can’t ever imagine my father telling me to get laid.’

His finger dropped. ‘I didn’t say that.’ He smiled as he continued, ‘But maybe treating yourself to a bit of pampering, indulging yourself for a week or two, go all out on the massage and happy hour when you’re off duty. I would love to picture that when you drive away.’

‘I’ll think about it.’ Nice dream. Last thing she could imagine but she could pretend.

But Tara’s world shifted as Doug laid down the law. ‘Your driver will be here in the Jeep in four hours to take you to the airport. You fly to Rome, sleep for an extra day, and pick up the ship there. You should have enough time to pack and say goodbye.’

Tara felt the cold wash of reality, of change, and a little of the trepidation new places caused in a woman who just might have forgotten how to be a woman. And just a tiny whisper of relief. She really was getting close to the edge. ‘I can’t leave just like that.’

He looked at her kindly. ‘Can I tell you, in my experience, when you’ve invested as much as you have into this place and with these people, it’s the only way to leave?’

CHAPTER TWO

TWO DAYS later at eleven a.m. Tara stood on the dock in Civitavecchia, Rome’s nearby port for cruise ships. Apart from the blinding white cruise liner that dominated the dock, it wasn’t a romantic place, more a service centre with cranes and cargo ships and a semi-deserted building more reminiscent of a warehouse than a cruise-liner departure hall. Well, that was good. She wasn’t feeling in the least romantic.

The officer in white asked her business and she handed over the papers Doug had given her.

‘Welcome to the Sea Goddess, Dr McWilliams. I’ll page Dr Hobson to meet you as soon as you board. If you would move through to check in via Security, please.’

‘Thank you.’ What the heck was she doing here?

* * *

Nick Fender, temporary bar manager for the Sea Goddess, decided the hardship of holding his sister’s job for her wasn’t so bad.

The sounds and subtle shift of the moored cruise ship soaked into his smile. It had been a while since he’d done a stint on a ship, as ship’s doctor last time. It had been even longer since the early days when he’d had a year off from med school after his parents had died and worked as the cocktail waiter everyone had loved. That’s when he’d laid the foundations for the life-of-the-party persona he’d grown very comfortable with.

So here he was back behind the bar, selling cocktails and holding down Kiki’s job while she fought off pneumonia. Wilhelm, the current ship’s doctor, had thought Nick’s retro-vocation hilarious and Nick was starting to see the funny side of it too.

And then there were the women. Some men could develop an ease with the opposite sex and Nick was one of them. He loved women. No favouritism.

That was until he glimpsed the tall, fine-boned dolly bird arrive late to the briefing room, and judging by her uniform she was the ship’s new junior doctor.

An uneasy prickle of déjà vu kept his eyes on her but he’d remember if he’d seen her before. But something was there. Something about her that tweaked at all the protective instincts he hadn’t known he had, at some gut level of awareness.

Nick loved the female gender. His doting sisters probably had something to do with that, and Nick liked to dip and dally, like the seagulls he could see outside the porthole, because he wasn’t falling for the have-and-hold dream. His parents’ early deaths and the letter he could tell no one about had seen to that.

Nick laughed his way through life with like-minded friends, and there were a lot of those working cruise liners. It was all about avoiding the horror of being left with just one person for ever.

Until she walked in. What the hell was that? He dragged his eyes away and concentrated on his watch to work out when the first passengers would arrive, when the ship would sail out the harbour, and when the bar would open. He didn’t have time for some random woman to explode unexpectedly like fine champagne on his frothy beer life.

He was the good-time guy.

Tara glanced around the small room filled with chairs and smiling crew members and started towards a seat in front of the hunky guy in the back row. He had those laughing black eyes all the best pirate actors had, the ones who could crook their little fingers at buxom wenches who’d come running.

Well, nobody would call her buxom. She’d lost so much weight she’d left her breasts in the Sudan and now for the first time she almost missed them.

He looked away as she caught his eye and she thought of her boss, Doug, and for the first time today a small smile tugged at her mouth. The smile broadened as she got closer, read his badge and realised he was actually a bar manager. Doug had said find a cocktail waiter so she was going up in the world.

Not that she really wanted to have an affair. Being the merry widow wasn’t her style but she did need to relearn how to talk to people. How to talk to men. That was, men who weren’t relatives of women who’d died or Doug.

She’d grown up enough not to expect to find ‘romantic love’. Vander had laughed at that. Still, maybe she could practise her smiles and small talk and become a normal socially acceptable human being again.

She’d at least managed to have her cracked and broken nails attended to and her hair cut this morning at the hotel. She really would try to lighten up for a week or two as ordered because even with the twenty-four hours’ sleep she’d had she was starting to feel better.

Maybe Doug had been right and she did need to touch the other world out there.

Her immediate superior on ship, Wilhelm Hobson, had met her at the gangplank and given her a quick orientation tour. Big ship! No doubt she’d be hopelessly lost for a few more days and planned on sticking to the crew areas and the medical centre to keep her bearings.

She certainly didn’t want to flirt with Wilhelm. The last thing Tara needed was to discuss work socially, apart from the fact doctors and death went together in her mind at the moment. She didn’t want to flirt with anyone but she would like to meet people she could talk with and, heaven forbid, even laugh with after the uneven fight she’d been waging for the last two years.

She sighed and wrenched her mind away from the camp. Concentrate on the here and now, she reminded herself.

The ship’s medical centre, much larger than she’d expected, seemed almost obscenely stocked with equipment after her workplace at the camp. Apart from three consulting rooms and ten observation inpatient beds, the centre even had its own X-ray machine. And morgue. She frowned at herself.

There were ECGs, defibrillators, minor surgical equipment and orthopaedic immobilisation gear. No doubt all would be useful, along with the myriad general-practice skills that would be needed in this isolated community far from land.

It actually did promise to be interesting the more she blocked her mind from her desertion of the refugee camp. In fact, perhaps not a bad way to ease back into the general-practice headspace she’d need to revisit for the next six months. That was how long Doug had stipulated before he would even consider her return.

The dashing young South African physician in charge was sweet, and obviously a bit of a player, but if she wanted to learn people skills, she wanted light, frivolously very far from medicine, and definitely short term. Just so she could show Doug she was fine.

So here she was and she resisted the evil urge to sneak another peek at the heady masculine brew behind her. Way out of her league but maybe she could make up a drink name for him. Unfortunately the ones that popped into her head tinged on the Curacao blue side and she mentally backed away.

What had got into her?

She hadn’t expected to leap onto Doug’s idea with a vengeance. Bizarre when she hadn’t looked at a man since med school and look where that had left her. A widow in a refugee camp with shoulders full of guilt for being the one who’d survived.

She’d never even been a necessary part of her parents’ lives, and Vander had said he needed her. Actually, as a missionary he’d needed her skills, so she’d flown off with her new husband filled with the warm and fuzzy idea that he’d loved her. Reality had left her bewildered but before she’d been able to get too angry at him for not being interested in love and sex, apparently the last thing he needed after a fifteen-hour day, he’d died of cholera.

So two years down the track was that what she wanted? Sex? Would that fix her? Make her human again?

Because she certainly felt robotic with years of bounding out of bed after ten minutes’ sleep, crash Caesareans with one eye open, triplets before breakfast, and massive post-partum haemorrhages at least once a night.

She’d have to stay awake for it, of course. Sex. She’d never really had the chance to figure what all the fuss was about. But one glance behind at corded muscles and mile-wide shoulders and she was contemplating caffeine to help keep her eyes open.

Good grief. She was seriously unstable and maybe Doug had it right. She chewed her lip to stop the smile. She felt decidedly immoral just thinking about it, and as a blush stole up her neck she glanced at her watch, willing the safety lecture to get going.

Safety seemed like a good thing to dwell on. That, and removing her mind from the gutter.

A shift in air currents and a sudden blocking of light was probably what had caused her breath to catch. That or the fact the intoxicating man behind had shifted and sat down beside her. Suddenly the room was two degrees hotter and filled with a crackling tension. So there really were men out there where that pheromone antenna thing actually happened and you got goose-bumps?

‘Hello, there. You’re new here?’ Deep, skin-tingling voice that raised the hairs on the back of her neck and a whiff of some expensive cologne the price of which would probably feed a Sudanese family for a month. Pleeease. Tara fought the blush from her cheeks.

Nick had specifically told his legs no when they’d wanted to shift him forward one row and sit beside the too-thin brunette, but the force of nature was not to be reckoned with and by the time he’d settled in next to her he’d already accepted it. Just a conversation.

She raised thick brown eyebrows that disdained fashion. In fact, he smiled to himself as he thought of the women he knew and their fetish for perfect dyed and primped arches, he doubted these had ever seen a pair of tweezers. ‘Do I look that new?’

He waggled his forehead. ‘New. Lost. And very new….’

She glanced away. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She looked at him again and he grinned to show he was only kidding, but she didn’t smile back. Crashed and burned, old boy, he mocked himself. ‘And on that auspicious beginning perhaps we could introduce ourselves.’

He held out his hand and he’d have to say gingerly she put her fingers briefly in his. Maybe he should have assured her his were clean, judging by her reluctance.

‘I’m Tara McWilliams.’

‘Tara.’ The star-ar. He always rhymed names to remember. First rule of attracting women. Remember their names. Nick had never noticed hands during a handshake before. Not what you did, really, but hers…fingers, bone-slender, too cold. She looked a little anaemic, her hand so workworn that he had the bizarre impulse to rub it warm and shelter it between his palms.

Instead, he continued the conversation as if he hadn’t noticed her pull herself free quickly. ‘Nick. Bar manager for the Casablanca Bar.’

‘Appropriate.’

He scratched his head comically and shook it. ‘Don’t get it?’

‘Humphrey Bogart. Casablanca. His name was Nick in the movie.’

He grinned. ‘Actually, it was Rick. Sorry. I have four sisters who love romantic movies but will henceforth think of Bogart every time I see my name now.’

She narrowed her eyes at him but not enough to distract him from noticing the colour. Honey brown. Or toffee. Like her skin. Like her gorgeous legs and arms. Edible. And yet incredibly weary.

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Do you always correct people?’ She was cross. And still looked good with it. Damn good.

He blinked and opened his eyes wide. ‘Only when they’re wrong.’

Tara had to laugh. Or be hurt because she wasn’t used to people correcting her. It had all been life and death for the last two years with very little light relief and this barman had probably seen just the opposite. In fact, maybe she should cultivate him and relearn her humour and fluff from the fantasy world of shipboard existence. Good candidate.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll have fun.’ Could he read her mind?

She tasted the word. Rolled it around in her mouth and nibbled at it. Fun. Imagine. She grimaced. Boy, was she out of practice.

This guy looked like he rolled in good times. Most likely shimmied in sex. ‘I’ll try.’ She had no doubt he could provide her with more fun than even Doug would want for her if she made any effort at all. Scary thought but she’d been a reasonably fun person before she’d grown up.

The emergency drill session at the front of the room started and she sat up straight.

Nick watched her concentrate as the senior safety officer began to speak. So a serious pupil, determined to pay attention and learn all she could before the new influx of passengers arrived that afternoon. That was good.

He was interested too, had had a private introduction as a manager that had been more in-depth and he’d come along to see if his staff were attending, but there was no doubt he’d become distracted by the intensity that Tara gave to her own process of learning.

He sat forward and concentrated. Had to admit he was keen to see where she’d be deployed compared to him. He might just have to keep an eye on her.

He guessed he had the advantage, having worked on ships before. After he’d qualified he’d done a year as junior doctor on board the sister ship to this one, and had actually been instrumental in Wilhelm deciding to try the life. So his old friend owed him and he’d called in that favour to put a word in for his sister when she’d gone down with pneumonia.

But all they’d been able to manage was Nick replacing Kiki for the two weeks or her bar manager’s job would go. Luckily for Kiki, he didn’t mind. He’d been due for a holiday anyway.

His ex-girlfriend, Jasmin, had been getting way too serious and not been pleased to jet off from Rome to New York on her own. Hence the relief in his newly single status. Family came first and he made no apologies. Especially when it suited him.

His attention flicked back to the lecture. The safety officer discussed the routine of a compulsory muster for all passengers before they sailed and outlined the crew’s duties as emergency officers. Not much had changed and he was glad to see he was on the same station as Tara.

With over three thousand passengers and one thousand crew members the ship would give enough opportunities for her to slip out of sight. He couldn’t remember when he’d last been so aware of planning to ‘bump into’ a woman.

Usually it just happened—or not. Funny how he didn’t feel the same relaxed acceptance of fate with this slip of a medic beside him. Must be because she looked so frail—in an I-can-look-after-myself way that dared him to mention it. He wasn’t saying a thing but he’d be watching for her.

But as the middle child and only male in the family, it was his job to make everyone smile. After his parents had died it had been even more reason to be the entertainer. He was still the entertainer. He could show this Tara a very good time.

* * *

Tara walked away from Nick Fender. Fender? She could imagine the guy with an air guitar, thrusting his hips and pretending.

She blinked. What? Had she left her brain back in that room? She concentrated on the directions to the hospital pinned to the wall in front of her.

She had to keep reminding herself she was at work. It was so strange without the need to rush from one emergency to the next.

With the help of the occasional map, Tara navigated two stairwells and a corridor and found her way back to the hospital where Marie, the head nurse, was shifting boxes of supplies.

‘Let me help with that.’ Tara hurried forward and helped lift the other side of an awkwardly shaped parcel Marie wanted on the desk.

The nurse brushed the hair out of her eyes when the parcel was safely stowed. ‘Thanks, Tara. It’s the new ECG machine. It wasn’t heavy but, boy, was it awkward.’

‘So what else can I do for you?’ Tara glanced around. Boxes everywhere.

Marie grinned at her. ‘Seriously, I’m just unpacking. First day is all about unpacking and stowing.’

Tara rubbed her hands. Activity would be excellent. ‘Then I’ll help. It’s the best way to find where things live anyway. Can’t be asking you where everything is all the time.’

The two women smiled at each other and Tara felt like she’d gone the first step to making at least one friend. ‘Always happy to have help. Though you’ll have to go through the crew’s notes before we leave this afternoon. Those with illnesses they’ve notified us of, anyway.’

She gestured Tara through to the ward area and a sterile supply room. ‘Reckon this will be the place that confuses you most.’

The storeroom was wall-to-wall shelves. She glanced around and Tara wondered if she’d get back to being as easy to talk to as Marie was. Her own conversation skills needed repolishing—just those few exchanges with air-guitar Nick had shown her that—and she wanted to fit in. Drop her doom-and-gloom mantle that had grown since she’d married and try at least to pretend to join in with ‘normal’ people.

The day passed swiftly, especially when the passengers came on board. Most of them looked as lost as Tara had been when she’d been out of the hospital but the mood was high and excited and totally different from the world Tara had just left.

Tara stood with Marie on the deck and watched the lines being cast off, then they eased away from the dock and maybe she could adjust to the sway of the ship and the routines on board. It was all so different from the hectic rush from one dire patient to the next.

Normally the clinic for passengers opened three times a day for two hours. The crew phoned down for quick access most of the time.

Today the passenger clinic would open once except for emergencies—most of which Wilhelm would deal with. Lovely change. She only dealt with occupational mishaps of the crew, minor illnesses among them, and passenger cabin calls when Wilhelm couldn’t attend.

Even her cabin on the crew deck seemed outrageously luxurious compared to her tent at the camp. Air-conditioning and hot and cold running water and a porthole that was much larger than she’d expected and afforded an amazing view across the water. She just might be in heaven.